Chapter 10: The Dinner Billy Got

At five minutes of six Bertram and Calderwell came. Bertram gave his peculiar ring and let himself in with his latchkey; but Billy did not meet him in the hall, nor in the drawing-room. Excusing himself, Bertram hurried up-stairs. Billy was not in her room, nor anywhere on that floor. She was not in William’s room. Coming down-stairs to the hall again, Bertram confronted William, who had just come in.

“Where’s Billy?” demanded the young husband, with just a touch of irritation, as if he suspected William of having Billy in his pocket.

William stared slightly.

“Why, I don’t know. Isn’t she here?”

“I’ll ask Pete,” frowned Bertram.

In the dining-room Bertram found no one, though the table was prettily set, and showed half a grapefruit at each place. In the kitchen—in the kitchen Bertram found a din of rattling tin, an odor of burned food—, a confusion of scattered pots and pans, a frightened cat who peered at him from under a littered stove, and a flushed, disheveled young woman in a blue dust-cap and ruffled apron, whom he finally recognized as his wife.

“Why, Billy!” he gasped.

Billy, who was struggling with something at the sink, turned sharply.

“Bertram Henshaw,” she panted, “I used to think you were wonderful because you could paint a picture. I even used to think I was a little wonderful because I could write a song. Well, I don’t any more! But I’ll tell you who is wonderful. It’s Eliza and Rosa, and all the rest of those women who can get a meal on to the table all at once, so it’s fit to eat!”

“Why, Billy!” gasped Bertram again, falling back to the door he had closed behind him. “What in the world does this mean?”

“Mean? It means I’m getting dinner,” choked Billy. “Can’t you see?”